The Magazine of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy, George Mason University
Translational Fall 2014 Criminology Promoting knowledge exchange to shape criminal justice research, practice, and policy
Inside this issue… Around the CEBCP Modeling Successful Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships The St. Louis Public Safety Partnership Realizing the Potential of Technology for Policing Integrating Evidence to Stop Shootings The CEBCP 2014 Award Winners Reflections on theV alue of Evidence-Based Practices in Policing The Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based Crime Policy Practical Research to Address School Safety Developing and Sustaining an International Researcher-Practitioner Partnership Translating Research through the Documentary Film Lost for Life Where Social Science Goes Wrong CEBCP Mission Statement The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP), housed within the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University, seeks to make scientific research a key component in decisions about crime and justice policies by advancing rigorous studies in criminal justice and criminology through research–practice collaborations and proactively serving as an informational link to practitioners and the policy community. Translational Criminology advances this mission by illustrating examples of how research is converted into criminal justice practice.
Staff Executive Director: David Weisburd Director: Cynthia Lum Deputy Director: Charlotte Gill Fellows: James Bueermann, Christopher Koper, Stephen Mastrofski, Linda Merola, Laurie Robinson, James Translational Willis, Nigel Waters, Sue-Ming Yang Research Assistants: Breanne Cave, Julie Grieco, Stephen Happeny, William Johnson, Matthew Nelson, Jordan Criminology Fall 2014 Nichols, Sang Jun Park, Zoe Vitter, Heather Vovak, Alese Wooditch, Xiaoyun Wu Promoting knowledge exchange to shape criminal justice research, Executive Assistant and Office Manager:Naida Kuruvilla practice, and policy Fulbright Visiting Scholars: Richard Adams (Police From the Directors ...... 1 Scotland), Victoria Garnett (Metropolitan Police Service, London) Around the CEBCP ...... 2 Affiliated Scholars: Elizabeth Groff (Temple University), Julie Hibdon (Southern Illinois University), Joshua Modeling Successful Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships: Hinkle (Georgia State University), Brian Lawton The International Association of Chiefs of Police (CUNY, John Jay), Travis Taniguchi (The Police Research Advisory Committee ...... 4 Foundation), Cody Telep (Arizona State University) The St. Louis Public Safety Partnership ...... 6 Research Programs Crime and Place Realizing the Potential of Technology for Policing ...... 9 Evidence-Based Policing Integrating Evidence to Stop Shootings: New York’s GIVE Systematic Reviews Criminal Justice Policy (Gun-Involved Violence Elimination) Initiative ...... 11 The CEBCP 2014 Award Winners ...... 14 Advisory Board Chair: Peter Neyroud, Cambridge University Looking Forward, Looking Back: Reflections on theV alue Robert Boruch, University of Pennsylvania of Evidence-Based Practices in Policing ...... 16 Gerben Bruinsma, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement The Distinguished Achievement Award James Bueermann, The Police Foundation in Evidence-Based Crime Policy ...... 18 Cathy Lanier, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C. Practical Research to Address School Safety: Jerry Lee, Jerry Lee Center of Criminology, University The Secret Service-U.S. Department of Education of Pennsylvania Safe Schools Initiative ...... 20 Friedrich Lösel, Emeritus, Cambridge University Bernard Melekian, Former Director of the Office Developing and Sustaining an International of Community Oriented Policing Services Researcher-Practitioner Partnership ...... 23 Daniel Nagin, Carnegie Mellon University Kathleen O’Toole, Seattle Police Department Juvenile Lifers: Translating Research through the Documentary Carol Petrie, DSG Inc. Film Lost for Life ...... 25 Lawrence Sherman, University of Maryland and Cambridge University Where Social Science Goes Wrong ...... 28 Darrel Stephens, Major City Chiefs Association Contact Us Christy Visher, University of Delaware Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy Website: www.cebcp.org Hubert Williams (retired), The Police Foundation George Mason University Email: [email protected] Research Hall, Rooms 310-318 Twitter: @cebcp Photos by Alexis Glenn and Evan Cantwell 4400 University Drive, MS 6D12 YouTube: clsmason Fairfax, VA 22030 From the Directors
e want to begin by thanking everyone who participated Governor of New York, in our successful symposium this past June. With our and William Modzeleski, partners from the Inter-American Development Bank, formerly of the U.S. asW well as panelists who gave of their time and expertise, the 2014 Department of Education, and Anthony Petrosino and his colleagues CEBCP-IDB symposium covered a wide array of challenging issues at WestEd to continue these conversations in this issue. Buck in evidence-based crime policy including school safety, gun violence, discusses the importance of funding replications of studies to technology and law enforcement, crime analysis, community crime strengthen what we think we may know about justice programs and prevention, policing and deterrence, and the funding of science in practices. Abt writes about New York State’s GIVE (Gun-Involved Promoting knowledge exchange to shape criminal justice research, crime policy. We would especially like to thank our keynote speakers, Violence Elimination) Initiative and the role that states can play in practice, and policy Daniel Ortega of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) guiding evidence-based practices. And Modzeleski, Petrosino, and Daniel Nagin of Carnegie Mellon University, who capped off Guckenburg, and Fronius lend their thoughts on the role of research each day with provocative ideas for the future. in highly profiled and political issues such as school safety and Our next symposium takes place overseas, in partnership with the violence. Their expertise reflects a strong theme in the CEBCP—to Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR). This event builds continue to question what is evidence-based crime policy, and what upon our 2013 symposium with SIPR, focusing on knowledge does it mean for science to impact justice-related decision making. exchange, translation, and research in policing. Supported by the Finally, we are pleased to present our readers with reflections from Scottish Police College and the Scottish government, we look two of our award winners, Jeremy Travis and Clark Kimerer. Travis’s forward to exchanging ideas with our colleagues in Tulliallan and thought-provoking speech that he gave upon accepting the Distin- Edinburgh, Scotland. Back in the United States, we invite everyone guished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based Crime Policy reflects to join us for our next Congressional Briefing on school safety and his years of experience in negotiating and fostering a relationship school violence in partnership with our colleagues at WestEd, between science and criminal justice practice. Kimerer’s Hall of Fame tentatively scheduled for February 2015. statement shows how both critical and careful thought as well as All these events reflect one of the CEBCP’s core values: engaging open-mindedness are key in developing leadership in evidence-based in strong partnerships with a variety of researchers, practitioners, and policy. Their wise words provide guidance to leaders who confront policy makers from around the globe. In this issue of Translational challenges every day about using, implementing, and translating Criminology, we highlight the importance of partnerships in both research in practice. generating research evidence and translating knowledge to practice. We hope you will continue to enjoy Translational Criminology as Ed Davis and Laurie Robinson discuss the IACP’s Research Advisory much as we enjoy creating it. We also invite scholars, practitioners, Committee as a model for institutionalizing police-researcher and policy makers to collaborate for future submissions. partnerships. Richard Rosenfeld, Geoff Alpert, and Peter Martin focus on specific partnerships in policing in the United States and David Weisburd, Executive Director Australia and what makes them successful. Rosenfeld reflects on his Cynthia Lum, Director work with the St. Louis Police Department and offers advice to younger scholars seeking to work with practitioners. Alpert and Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy Martin discuss the challenges and possibilities of international George Mason University relationships. And Christopher Koper, Cynthia Lum, and James Willis provide results from a partnership with two police agencies to evaluate the impact of technology on policing. During the symposium, we also had lively discussion and debate about the role of science in policy and practice. Keeping with this theme, we asked three of the symposium’s speakers, Stuart Buck from the Arnold Foundation, Thomas Abt from the Office of the
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 1 Around the CEBCP
The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) is housed within the Depart- ment of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University. We seek to make scientific research a key component in decisions about crime and justice policies. The Number of CEBCP carries out this mission by advancing rigorous studies in criminal justice and current team criminology through research-practice collaborations, and proactively serving as an members in informational and translational link to practitioners and the policy community. The the CEBCP CEBCP was founded in 2008 and is home to the Crime and Place Working Group, 33 Translational Criminology, the Matrix, Dave Wilson’s Systematic Review Toolkit, The LPR WebPortal, and countless videos and print resources.
The Department of Criminology, Law and Society is now accepting applicants for its PhD and MA programs for 2015–16. To learn more about our highly ranked graduate programs, visit cls.gmu.edu.
ADVISORY BOARD Growth of the CEBCP
35 The center welcomes two new members to its distin- 32 guished advisory board: Bernard Melekian, former 30 Interns and Postdocs 26 director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing 25 24 Research Assistants 21 Services, and Kathleen O’Toole, chief of the Seattle 20 Research Associates Police Department. Chaired by Peter Neyroud of 16 15 Af liated Faculty 12 Cambridge University and formerly the National Policing 10 Senior Fellows Improvement Agency in the United Kingdom, the 5 Executive Assistants advisory board’s 15 distinguished scholars and practi- Executives 0 tioners provide guidance, advice, and fresh ideas to 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 the center.
ACCOLADES AND AWARDS
David Weisburd was selected as the 2014 recipient of the American Society of Criminology’s highest honor, the Sutherland Award. Cynthia Lum was named a fellow of the Academy of Experimental Criminology.
Did you know that the center’s research assistants are award-winning? Currently on our team are five Mason provost scholars (Stephen Happeny, Bill Johnson, Matt Nelson, Sang Jun Park, and Heather Vovak), one presidential scholar (Breanne Cave), two College of Humanities and Social Sciences Dean’s Challenge Award winners (Breanne Cave and Jordan Nichols), and two Division of Experimental Criminology Student Paper Award winners (Matt Nelson and Alese Wooditch). Two of our former researchers are now assistant professors: Julie Hibdon at Southern Illinois University and Cody Telep at Arizona State University.
Congratulations to Zoe Vitter who received an MA degree this summer!
2 www.cebcp.org “The CEBCP has developed into the key interface between the research and academic commu- nity, and the practitioners in the criminal justice field. The center is a leading force in bringing all stakeholders together to promote change and advancement in the criminal justice system.”
—John Kapinos, Fairfax County Police Department
UPCOMING EVENTS JOURNALS CEBCP A special “Thank you!” to all of the speakers, participants, and FACULTY EDIT CEBCP graduate assistants who made this year’s symposium with the Inter-American Development Bank a success.
October 20–22: The Scottish Institute for Policing Research and the CEBCP will join forces once again for a special sym- posium this year in Tulliallan, Scotland.
November 18–22: American Society of Criminology 2014 Conference in San Francisco: The Crime and Place Working Group has organized 15 panels on place-based criminology. Also, join us for special events for the Division of Experimental Criminology and the Division of Policing.
Spring 2015: The CEBCP will partner with WestEd on its next congressional briefing. The topic will beschool violence and safety.
OUR COMMUNITY 3,062 The number of people who subscribe to CEBCP’s mailing list
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 3 Modeling Successful Researcher-Practitioner Partnerships: The International Association of Chiefs of Police Research Advisory Committee
BY ED DAVIS AND LAURIE ROBINSON
Research Advisory Committee co-chairs Ed Davis is commissioner of the Boston Police Department (retired), and Laurie Robinson is a Robinson Professor at George Mason University. A special thanks to John Firman and Dianne Beer-Maxwell for assisting with this article.
n October 2003, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), in partnership with the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the Association of Doctoral Programs in Criminology Iand Criminal Justice, held a roundtable, resulting in the publication Unresolved Problems and Powerful Potentials: Improving Partnerships between Law Enforcement Leaders and University Based Researchers.1 Ed Davis Laurie Robinson Of the 49 recommendations emerging from this event, the most innovative was the call for IACP to create a Research Advisory and research partnerships that are especially noteworthy. Committee (RAC) that would address the global issue of improving • Prepare for the association an annual law enforcement research police and researcher relationships, as well as research outcomes. agenda. Just one year later, the IACP took that action, formally amending • Develop strategies to improve the ability of law enforcement its constitution to allow for the creation of the RAC. Modeling the agencies to receive grants to support research included in that goal of strong researcher-practitioner partnerships, a co-chair agenda. leadership approach was selected. Ronal Serpas, then chief of the • Review and provide advice on the law enforcement research Nashville, Tennessee, Police Department (now superintendent of the activities of the NIJ and other agencies in the U.S. Department New Orleans Police Department and the IACP third vice president) of Justice. was chosen as the practitioner co-chair. Charles Wellford of the • Support or help design educational sessions at the IACP confer- University of Maryland, noted worldwide for his achievements in law ence and other conferences on law enforcement research findings enforcement and justice research, was selected as the academic and impact. co-chair. Working with IACP leadership, the co-chairs then selected Today, 10 years after its creation, the RAC is an active and 30 committee members, consisting of a balance of law enforcement influential committee within IACP’s organizational structure. The leaders and noted academic researchers.2 2014 RAC co-chairs, Ed Davis, commissioner of the Boston Police Department (retired), and Professor Laurie Robinson of George The RAC’s mission was established at its first meeting: Mason University, continue to carry on the mission and objectives The committee shall provide input, advice, and direction to the associa- set out in 2004. tion, law enforcement practitioners, law enforcement researchers, and the criminal justice system on all aspects of law enforcement policy research Partnering for Success and evaluation. The RAC models the behavior that it encourages the field to emulate To achieve this mission, five principal objectives were set out: by building sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships. The • Work toward the goal of establishing and sustaining effective RAC began its work with several years of support from the NIJ, research partnerships among law enforcement agencies and providing guidance to the institute and the field to rely more on organizations, and the research community. Special attention will research to drive policy development. In addition to the NIJ, the be given to identifying examples that demonstrate the importance RAC has also partnered successfully with the private sector (Sprint of such partnerships (especially with university-based researchers) Corporation and, more recently, the Arnold Foundation) to create a and preparing intermittent reports to the field on law enforcement national excellence in police research award. Looking to the academic
4 www.cebcp.org community for leadership and guidance, representatives of the American Society of Criminology and the Academy of Criminal Justice Science sit as permanent liaisons to the RAC as it carries out its mission. In 2007, the RAC in partnership with the NIJ developed and released a set of companion guidebooks, Establishing and Sustaining Law Enforcement-Researcher Partnerships, with one being geared toward researchers 3 and the other geared toward law enforce- ment leaders.4 The goal of these guidebooks is to help encourage more collaborative police research.
Articulating a National Research Agenda Left to right: Manhattan Police Department analyst Shaun Stanton, In collaboration with the NIJ, the RAC launched a nationwide Officer Mat Droge, Kansas State University professor L. Susan survey of law enforcement leaders in 2007 to assess current and Williams, Captain Timothy Hegarty, and Director Bradley Schoen with emerging research priorities. The results of that survey were published their IACP/Sprint Excellence in Law Enforcement Research Award and in 2008 in the RAC’s report Improving 21st Century Policing through RAC co-chair Laurie Robinson at the Research Advisory Committee award dinner at the IACP annual meeting in Philadelphia. Priority Research: The IACP’s National Law Enforcement Research Agenda.5 While research priorities change every year, this study helped focus future research by articulating the eight overarching areas of research issues: leadership, management and administration, Prioritizing Research for IACP Members training and education, justice and other system studies, technology, Another strong RAC priority has been to ensure that members who response to crime and victimization, emergency preparedness, and attend the IACP annual conference (typically 15,000 delegates) have emerging issues. A few years later, this report was followed by Law the opportunity to learn about cutting-edge research that is changing Enforcement Research Priorities for 2011 and Beyond,6 which presented law enforcement and justice practices. To achieve this goal, the RAC recommendations on facilitating law enforcement’s use of research suggests educational panels and populates those panels with noted findings, participating in research, and enhancing the utility, quality, researchers and their partner law enforcement leaders. This year, the and quantity of law enforcement research. RAC is pleased to support another innovative research feature at the conference: the NIJ is sponsoring an entire day of educational panels Translating Research into Action on urgent policing issues specifically being addressed through 8 An immediate concern of the RAC was the gap between research research. findings written for an academic audience versus a practitioner audience. To make research more accessible to law enforcement, the Promoting Evidence-Based Policing RAC created the first committee-driven recurring column in Police At present, the RAC, alongside IACP staff and in collaboration with Chief Magazine titled Research in Brief. Beginning in 2012, the George Mason University, is creating an informational brochure to column has presented high-quality research from researcher- help law enforcement leaders better understand how evidence-based practitioner teams, always including an action agenda for police policing can improve police policies and practices. The ultimate goal leaders to help them implement the research into action through of this brief publication is to motivate police leaders to learn more policy reform.7 Recent topics have ranged from eyewitness identifica- about evidence-based policing and begin using this model to address tion to hot spot policing to human resources issues. current and future local issues.
Honoring Law Enforcement Research Supporting Research-Based Policy Reform The RAC recognized that within the law enforcement community, The RAC has also leveraged its capacity to make statements of university-based research on key policing issues often does not receive support on policing issues where research provides clear direction. the kind of recognition it deserves. To help IACP members gain a For example, in 2011, the RAC wrote an IACP resolution on pretrial 9 true appreciation of the value of science driving policy, the RAC reform, calling for the use of dangerousness and risk assessment created the IACP Excellence in Law Enforcement Research Award. before any pretrial release decision is made. That resolution, This annual award honors three outstanding researcher-practitioner grounded in historic and current research on pretrial failure and partnership efforts and is given in partnership with the Arnold success rates, was adopted by the IACP membership and is being Foundation at the IACP annual conference. Past awardees have been updated with support from recently released research and reintro- recognized for research ranging from internal risk assessment to duced for approval at IACP’s 2014 annual conference. evidence-based offender profiling. Continued on page 8
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 5 The St. Louis Public Safety Partnership
BY RICHARD ROSENFELD
Richard Rosenfeld is Founders Professor of Criminology and Criminal University of Missouri-St. Louis. The Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis and criminologist in memorandum committed the parties residence at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The research to improving public safety through described in this article was supported by a grant from the National evidence-based practices, provided the Institute of Justice (2012-IJ-CX-0042). The views expressed are the researchers unfettered access to research author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the National data, and guaranteed noninterference Institute of Justice. by criminal justice or other public officials with the process or results roductive partnerships between criminal justice agencies and of research carried out under the researchers are difficult to sustain. This is the story of a partnership. partnership that has lasted two and-a-half years, becoming Richard Rosenfeld The first lesson learned from the St. Pstronger over time. The reasons for the partnership’s success are not Louis experience is to formalize the entirely clear, but the signs of success and the lessons learned are researcher-practitioner partnership with a written agreement that incontrovertible. Researchers have nearly unlimited access to police, publicly commits all parties to a common goal, guarantees access to prosecutor, court, and corrections data; graduate students have agency data, and prohibits political interference—the more public received valuable training and experience working with criminal the agreement, the better. The Mayor’s Office held a press conference justice data and personnel; the university has been highly supportive; announcing the partnership and outlining its basic principles. It is and, most important, criminal justice and city officials value the much more difficult to back away from commitments written in the contributions of their academic partners and have incorporated public record than from informal understandings negotiated behind research results into agency practice. The partnership has produced the scenes. several research studies, one of which is described here. Along the way, I describe some of the lessons we have learned, and I close with Gaining Trust some observations about how such partnerships can be built and No matter how much pomp and circumstance attend the formation sustained elsewhere. of a researcher-practitioner partnership, it cannot succeed without trust. The researchers trust that promises of data access and free Starting Up inquiry will be kept. Agency personnel trust that the researchers have The St. Louis Public Safety Partnership began in January 2012. It was a genuine commitment to the goals of the partnership. Trust must be formally initiated by a memorandum of understanding signed by the earned, a lesson I learned the hard way. Not long after the partner- mayor of St. Louis, the chief of police, and the chancellor of the ship began, I gave a presentation to the police command staff
6 www.cebcp.org introducing our first research project. The reception, to say the least, The resulting research design did not meet textbook standards for was chilly. I was met with blank stares by those commanders who randomized controlled studies. We would have preferred a study were not occupied with their cell phones. The presentation was design with 47 cases and more statistical power. But we did secure scheduled for 30 minutes; I wrapped it up in 10. permission to conduct the first randomized controlled study in the A year went by. The research project ended, and I presented the police department’s history. Later, when we requested a three-month results to the police command staff, most of whom had been at my extension of the study to obtain more data, the commanders agreed, inaugural presentation a year earlier. The session was a hit. No one even though this meant higher overtime costs. The give and take was fiddled with their phone, eyes were fixed on the PowerPoint slides, mutually beneficial. The police commanders learned more about and the ensuing discussion lasted well beyond the 30-minute mark. their hot spot enforcement activities and, a sure sign they value this What accounts for the difference between the two meetings? In a knowledge, have requested follow-up studies. The researchers were word, trust. I regularly attended the weekly COMPSTAT meetings able to retain a randomized controlled design, albeit more limited during the past 12 months, as did my research assistant. Trust was than they had wanted, and published a paper, co-written with the earned by showing up, whether or not the meeting featured our head of the department’s Crime Analysis division, reporting the research. Showing up signified dedication and commitment to the results of the evaluation.1 They even wrote a basic research paper partnership. More than that, it indicated respect for the positions investigating the meaning and measurement of crime hot spots that held by the police commanders and the work they do. In return, they is currently under review for publication. The lesson learned, to showed respect for our role. That is the second lesson learned from paraphrase the well-known Rolling Stone lyrics, you can’t always get the partnership: mutual trust is essential, and trust is earned over what you want in a researcher-practitioner partnership, but if you try, time by showing respect for your partner’s work. sometimes you get what you need.
Negotiating the Research Age and Experience As important as it is, just showing up is not enough to sustain a To sum up, three of the major lessons we have learned from the St. successful researcher-practitioner partnership. Research must be Louis Public Safety Partnership are formalize and publicize the terms designed, carried out, and reported. Academic researchers distinguish of the agreement; trust is an essential ingredient of a successful between basic and applied research; practitioners make no such partnership and it must be earned over time; and be prepared to give distinction. They need research results they can apply to agency away some of what you want to achieve, the basic goal of any practices; they need them on time and within far shorter deadlines researcher-practitioner partnership, which is to conduct research that than most academic researchers are used to; and they want them informs criminal justice policy and practice. But there is another distilled into “actionable” procedures they can implement at lesson I have learned from our partnership, which is perhaps more minimum cost. For their part, researchers generally want research personal yet also relevant for other researchers contemplating similar opportunities that may have little immediate practical payoff; they arrangements: I could not have done this earlier in my career. need time to carry out reliable research; and they often have little I would not have had the time as an untenured professor to devote idea what a particular research application—or the research project to maintaining the momentum of an active partnership: regular itself—may actually cost. All of these issues must be negotiated, and attendance at meetings, individual consultations with agency both sides must be willing to give up something they want to gain personnel, lots of small studies with no certain academic payoff, big something they need. Here is an example from our first research studies that must conform to someone else’s schedule and priorities, project. and seemingly endless information requests from individuals and The purpose of the research was to evaluate a hot spot patrol community groups that have heard about the partnership, most of strategy. We had devised a randomized controlled study of which are perfectly reasonable and, in the aggregate, very time 47 designated crime hot spots across the city, half of which would consuming. These activities become ongoing obligations if the be subject to enhanced enforcement activity and half to normal partnership is to remain healthy and productive over time. If they go patrol. The police command staff balked at the research design, not unmet, either the partnership dies or fails to meet the needs of because it entailed the random allocation of resources but because neither the researchers nor the practitioners. And they take a lot some police districts had more hot spots, and therefore greater more time than most assistant professors wanting tenure have to give. participation in the study, than others. The district captains wanted There is another, arguably more important, reason I could not have equal participation. We conceded (we had no choice) and devised brokered and sustained a partnership of this kind when I was a block randomized study of four hot spots in each of eight police younger: I didn’t have the confidence in my professional judgment districts, two of which would be randomly assigned to the treatment needed for the job. That only comes with experience and, let’s face it, condition of enhanced enforcement and two to the control age. It is one thing to make a policy recommendation in the condition. conclusion of an article that few people will ever read. It is quite
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 7 another to give advice that someone will use to make a decision that On some occasions, then, researchers must give advice based on could affect, for better or worse, people’s lives. “Hey, Doc, Alderman their accumulated knowledge and experience that, by definition, only Smith has put up video cameras in his ward, and now the other develop over time. They should caution that their recommendations aldermen want them. They’re expensive. Do they do any good?” may be based on indirect or incomplete evidence. Younger research- “Doc, robberies have spiked in one of my beats. What’s the best way ers either have not developed the requisite experiential knowledge to respond, by beefing up foot patrols or vehicle stops?” These are the to perform this role effectively or, worse, give bad advice borne of kinds of questions that arise in the course of an active partnership. ignorance or bravado. The most effective partnerships, I am suggest- How should they be handled? ing, are headed on the researcher side by an experienced and senior Ideally, a researcher would like the opportunity to review the academic. But there is a place for less experienced academics in relevant literature or conduct a study on the topic before giving a researcher-practitioner partnerships: working alongside a senior recommendation. But that’s often not an option. The aldermen want colleague in a well-defined and time-limited research capacity. That their cameras now; the district captain can’t wait for a literature is the best way to produce the next generation of academic partners review on the most effective enforcement mechanisms for robbery, and keep researcher-practitioner partnerships alive and healthy over assuming much relevant research even exists; he has to act now. The time. The lesson learned: Partnerships work best when headed by a best response by the researcher in some instances may be simply to senior academic researcher, ideally paired with a junior colleague. beg off and honestly admit that you haven’t the faintest idea how to proceed. But if you do that too often, especially in a partnership such Reference as ours that encompasses a wide range of issues, from hot-spot 1. Richard Rosenfeld, Michael J. Deckard, and Emily J. Blackburn policing to devising exam questions for selecting the new chief, you (2014). “The Effects of Directed Patrol and Self-Initiated lose credibility and the partnership itself is endangered. After all, Enforcement on Firearm Violence: A Randomized Controlled from the practitioner’s perspective, you’re supposed to know the Study of Hot Spot Policing.” Criminology (doi: answers to questions such as these. That’s your end of the bargain. 10.1111/1745-9125.12043).
IACP, continued from page 5
RAC Future Objectives References Even considering the many accomplishments in bridging the 1. See www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/LawEnforcement-Universi- researcher-practitioner gap since the initial publication in 2003, the tyPartnership.pdf. RAC remains cognizant that along with the powerful potentials for 2. See www.theiacp.org/Research-Advisory-Committee for the RAC researcher-practitioner partnerships to improve policing across the roster. United States, a good number of unresolved problems remain. While 3. See www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/documents/pdfs/EstablishingSus- the work of the RAC and partner organizations such as George taingLawEnforcement-ResearchPartnershipsGuideforResearchers. Mason has done much to narrow the gap between research science pdf. and police policy and practice, more work remains. The RAC’s 4. See www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/documents/pdfs/EstablishingSus- long-range goal is to ensure that when any law enforcement leader taingLawEnforcement-ResearchPartnershipsGuideforLELeaders. begins work on policy improvement or program redesign, the first pdf. step will automatically be to seek out and employ existing research as 5. See www.theiacp.org/ViewResult?SearchID=1006. the foundation of that change. And where no applicable research 6. See www.theiacp.org/portals/0/pdfs/LEResearchPriorities2011. exists, to join with an academic partner to accomplish that research pdf. to meet local needs and enhance the body of policing research. 7. To submit a Research in Brief article for consideration, email To learn more about opportunities to partner with the RAC, email [email protected]. John Firman at [email protected]. 8. See www.theiacpconference.org/iacp2014/public/Calendar.aspx?S uperTrackId=&TrackId=23&AssociationId=&DateId=&FormatI d=&DurationId=&SpeakerId=&AbilityLevelId=&SessionTypeId =&SubExpoId=&Keyword=&&SearchEvent=&sortM enu=103002 for the NIJ Saturday Session schedule. 9. See www.theiacp.org/ViewResult?SearchID=2292.
8 www.cebcp.org Realizing the Potential of Technology for Policing
BY CHRISTOPHER S. KOPER, CYNTHIA LUM, and JAMES J. WILLIS
Christopher S. Koper is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University and a senior fellow in the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. Cynthia Lum is an associate professor in the Depart- ment of Criminology, Law and Society at George Mason University and the director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. James J. Willis is an associate professor in the Depart- ment of Criminology, Law and Society at George Christopher S. Koper Cynthia Lum James J. Willis Mason University and a senior fellow in the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.
nderstanding technological change is an important issue in better understanding of the impact of police technology on all sorts evidence-based policing. In particular, what does research of outcomes of interest to the police is becoming ever more tell us about the effects technology has on policing, and important. Uhow can that knowledge be used and translated to maximize the Toward this end, in a recent study for the National Institute of Jus- potential benefits of technological changes and innovations in law tice, we examined many of the social, organizational, and behavioral enforcement agencies? These concerns have become especially impacts of police technologies. Our goals were to more fully under- important in the past few decades, which have been a period of stand technological changes in policing and make recommendations particularly rapid technological change for law enforcement. for optimizing the use of technology in policing. Using a multi- Advancements in information technologies (IT), analytic systems, method approach in four agencies (both urban and suburban) that video surveillance systems, license plate readers, DNA testing, and included officer surveys, field observations, extensive interviews and other technologies have had far-reaching implications for police focus groups, and experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations, agencies. Technology acquisition and deployment decisions are we investigated the uses and impacts of several information, analytic, high-priority topics for police, as law enforcement agencies at all surveillance, and forensics technologies that are central to everyday levels of governments are spending vast sums on technology in the police functions (e.g., IT and mobile computing, crime analysis, and hopes of improving their efficiency and effectiveness. license plate readers). This approach allowed us to examine how these It is not clear whether these changes have made police more technologies affect police—in intended and unintended ways— effective. For example, clearance rates for crimes such as robbery, with respect to operations, management, agency structure, culture, assault, and burglary have remained fairly steady in recent decades efficiency, effectiveness, citizen interaction, and job satisfaction. At despite the spread of advanced forensics technologies and more the same time, we also tried to assess how various aspects of police extensive data and surveillance systems. (Indeed, homicide clearance organizations, culture, and behavior shape the uses of technology— rates have declined steadily over the past four decades.) The little and hence its impacts. evaluation research available on technology has tended to focus more We found that technology’s effects are complex and contradictory; on operation and outputs—for example, whether a technology works technological advances do not always produce straightforward and makes a process faster—than on its effectiveness in reducing improvements in communication, cooperation, productivity, job crime or improving service to citizens. And the evidence that is satisfaction, or officers’ effectiveness in reducing crime and serving available on technology and police performance suggests that citizens. Desired effects from technology, such as improving clearance technology’s impacts may be limited or offset by many factors rates and reducing crime, may take considerable time to materialize ranging from technical problems to officer resistance. The need for as agencies adapt to new technologies and refine their uses over time.
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 9 Some of these challenges stem from implementation and functional- should prepare a systematic and continuous approach to follow-up, ity problems with new technology, which can have negative and in-service training, reinforcement, ongoing technical support, and potentially long-term ramifications for the acceptance, uses, and adaptation to new lessons. This should include dissemination of impacts of that technology. Further, while technology can enhance information about effective practices, success stories, and tips for many aspects of police functioning and performance, it can detract easier or faster use of a technology. from others (for instance, the reporting requirements of new IT and To reap the full potential benefits of technology (and any innova- mobile computing systems may reduce the time that officers spend tion for that matter), police must also arguably address traditional interacting with citizens or doing other proactive work). and long-standing philosophical and cultural norms about the role Perhaps more fundamentally, police may fail to make strategically of law enforcement. Most notably, training about proactive and optimal uses of technology for reducing crime or achieving other evidence-based strategies—and how technology can be used in aims such as improving their legitimacy with the community. One support of those strategies—is needed. Research shows that police are key finding is that because many officers tend to frame policing in most effective in reducing crime when their strategies are proactive, terms of reactive response to calls for service, reactive arrest to crimes, focused both on high-risk places and groups, and oriented toward and adherence to standard operating procedures, they emphasize the problem solving and prevention. However, officers in our study sites use of technology to achieve these goals. To illustrate, officers in our seemed to have limited guidance and understanding of how technol- study sites were much more likely to use IT to guide and assist them ogy might help them in these regards, and their agencies lacked with traditional enforcement-oriented activities (e.g., locating reward systems to encourage innovative responses to crime. Agency persons of interest and checking the call history of a location) than training thus needs to address how technology might be used more for more strategic, proactive tasks (e.g., identifying hot spots to patrol comprehensively for preventing crime proactively. How, for example, between calls or doing preventive problem solving). They were also can officers use their agency’s information systems and crime analysis much more likely to find their job satisfying when they used to guide their patrol activities between calls for service, identify and technology in these traditional ways. address problems at hot spot locations, and monitor high-risk people This is not to say that technological advancement in policing is in their areas of responsibility? At the same time, how can managers undesirable and will not bring improvement. However, technological use these technologies to encourage such work by their subordinates? changes may not bring about easy and substantial improvements in Developing an infrastructure in policing for maximizing technol- police performance without significant planning and effort, and ogy’s potential requires thinking more carefully about how existing without infrastructure and norms that will help agencies maximize knowledge and new research can help police better navigate techno- the benefits of technology. Strategizing about technology application logical change in a cost-effective manner. This requires both police is thus essential and should involve careful consideration of the and researchers to make a greater commitment to a strong research specific ways in which new and existing technologies can be deployed and development agenda regarding technology. This commitment and used at all levels of the organization to meet goals for improving is currently lacking, as police often adopt new forms of technology efficiency, effectiveness, and agency management. Our fieldwork before their impacts and effectiveness have been demonstrated. Police suggests a number of ways that police can smooth the process of leaders would be in a much better position to make good decisions technological change and increase receptivity to new technology. We about technology acquisition and use if they knew more about the summarize a few of these points here (see our full report, soon to be organizational consequences of technological change and the posted on the website of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime effectiveness of different technologies in reducing crime. Police can Policy, for more detailed recommendations to police executives). begin this process by making greater efforts to systematically track For starters, police managers should allow for a broad base of the ways that new technologies are used and the outcomes of those participation in the technology implementation process by various uses. This is particularly applicable to such technologies as license personnel who will be affected by the technology. This process should plate readers, which are typically deployed with no systematic provide ample opportunities for pilot testing early versions of a tracking of how they are being used and with what results. It would technology and soliciting input that can be incorporated into its final help police evaluate the benefits of new technologies relative to their design. This process can be helpful in identifying and correcting costs and inform their assessments of which technologies are most technical problems with a technology before its full implementation beneficial. A good start would be to incorporate research discussions and for determining its most effective applications. Staff at various into early strategizing about technology acquisition and deployment. levels should also have opportunities to offer insights on how Researchers can assist practitioners by collaborating on evaluation technologies might be best integrated into assessments of studies that carefully assess the theories behind technology adoption performance. (i.e., how and why is a particular technology expected to improve Proper levels of training are also essential, especially for the most police effectiveness), the ways in which technology is used in police difficult technological changes. Once basic training is done, agencies agencies, the variety of organizational and community impacts that
Continued on page 17 10 www.cebcp.org Integrating Evidence to Stop Shootings: New York’s GIVE (Gun-Involved Violence Elimination) Initiative
BY THOMAS P. ABT
Thomas P. Abt is a senior research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy In fall 2013, DCJS engaged several School’s Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management and the nationally recognized experts—Teny former deputy secretary for public safety for the State of New York. Gross, David Kennedy, John Klofas, Tracey Meares, and Craig Uchida— olicy makers looking to scientific research to inform their along with the heads of state public crime control efforts generally find both opportunities and safety agencies to develop the new obstacles when implementing “what works,” that is, evidence- GIVE approach. DCJS researchers Pbased programs, in real world scenarios. First, the good news: there reviewed and synthesized the evidence are many publications, websites, and other resources that review the of “what works” nationally to reduce currently available evidence to identify programs that, if imple- gun violence, with focus on enforce- mented with fidelity, are likely to deliver positive results.1 Now the Thomas P. Abt ment.5 They also conducted extensive bad news: there is little practical guidance on when, where, and how data analysis of New York localities with such programs should be implemented; how they coordinate or align high levels of gun violence. with other efforts; and how they can be sustained over time.2 From this process emerged a relatively simple theory of change: The need for such guidance is pressing for at least two reasons. shootings and homicides can be reduced through locally developed, First, no single program, no matter how effective, is likely to be a state-supported strategies using data and evidence to focus on the complete solution to the complex and multifaceted public safety people and places most responsible for gun violence. Supporting this challenges policy makers face today. Second, policy rarely occurs in theory are three core elements of effectiveness: a vacuum, and the practical reality is that policy makers rarely have • People and Places. Extensive research demonstrates that in any the opportunity to begin with a clean slate. Instead, they must find given locality, gun violence generally concentrates among a small the right mix of strategies that, working in combination, are likely number of key individuals and locations. Identify these people and to lead to success on the ground. places and rigidly focus efforts accordingly. With the leadership and support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, I • Alignment. Coordinate activities and leverage resources to worked closely with New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services promote a cohesive, consistent effort focused on the people and (DCJS) and a number of outside experts to provide such guidance places above. through a new initiative named GIVE (or Gun-Involved Violence • Engagement. Conduct outreach to relevant stakeholders, the Elimination). GIVE supports local law enforcement partnerships in community, and other local, state, and federal law enforcement its efforts to fight gun violence outside New York City using the best agencies to ensure the effort receives the necessary support. evidence and data available. These core elements were distilled from six national strategies with While New York is the safest large state in the country and third the strongest evidence of effectiveness: safest overall,3 gun violence remains a persistent challenge outside • Problem-Oriented Policing. Problem-oriented policing is a New York City. Since 1990, gun homicides dropped an astounding well-known strategy that focuses police efforts on proactively 88 percent in New York City but rose 8 percent in the rest of the analyzing and addressing public safety challenges rather than state.4 GIVE meets this long-standing challenge by revitalizing one of reactively responding to individual crimes, cases, or incidents. New York’s largest local anticrime funding programs called Opera- • Hot Spot Policing. Well known to the readers of this journal, hot tion IMPACT and focusing those resources exclusively on evidence- spot policing strategies focus on small geographic areas or loca- based and data-driven strategies proven to reduce gun violence. tions, usually in urban centers, where crime is concentrated. Operation IMPACT annually distributes $13-15 million in DCJS • Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED). funding to the 17 jurisdictions outside New York City with the CPTED modifies aspects of the physical environment to decrease highest rates of violent crime. the likelihood of criminal activity, such as increased lighting
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 11 modifications to vehicular GIVE was publicly released in conjunction with the governor’s or pedestrian traffic flow. State of the State address on January 8, 2014, and the first round • Focused Deterrence. Also called of GIVE funding was announced on May 1, 2014. Participating “pulling levers,” focused deterrence jurisdictions are required to prepare a plan to use their GIVE funding applies to specific criminal consistent with the three core elements above. In addition, while behaviors conducted by a select plans are required to feature at least one of the strategies above, group of chronic offenders in a jurisdictions are strongly encouraged to adopt and align multiple particular area. Offenders are strategies, using them in combination with one another. confronted about their behavior Requiring GIVE’s 17 participating jurisdictions to simultaneously in a group setting or “call-in,” implement multiple evidence-based strategies is clearly ambitious generally by a number of relevant agencies and organizations, and raises challenges in terms of implementing such strategies with warned about the consequences of continuing to engage in such fidelity. GIVE anticipates these challenges and addresses them in behavior, and provided with the opportunity to obtain social a number of ways. services and other assistance. First, GIVE significantly expands the role of New York’s award- • Street Outreach Workers. Street outreach workers proactively winning Crime Analysis Centers and the use of analysis in preventing engage gang or group-involved offenders in dialogue and offer and solving shootings. DCJS and local law enforcement oversee the services to detect and resolve disputes and prevent retaliation that operations of five regional centers (with four more under construc- may lead to shootings and homicides. tion), which are staffed by DCJS-funded directors, civilian crime • Procedural Justice. Procedural justice emphasizes that good analysts, and field intelligence officers from partner agencies at the police/community relations depend more on the perceived fairness state and local levels. These centers will provide jurisdictions with and transparency of the process and how people are treated than on assistance in identifying and maintaining lists of the key people and any perceived outcome. The strategy features active engagement places responsible for the majority of local gun violence. with community members to discuss and increase awareness of Second, GIVE will offer an array of training and technical relevant police goals, strategies, and processes. assistance resources on the six strategies identified above, including These brief descriptions are intended only a starting point and only regional seminars and more intensive assistance tailored to specific summarily describe efforts developed, refined, and studied over many jurisdictions, all offered at no cost to jurisdictions. years. In addition, the separation articulated above is somewhat Third, GIVE will establish a statewide network among participat- ing jurisdictions, including meetings, webinars, and conference calls, to allow for cross-jurisdictional information sharing on successes and challenges, and promote collaboration and peer-to-peer learning. Fourth, GIVE begins with a significant advantage: a significant and durable funding source. Operation IMPACT was funded for more than a decade and GIVE funding should be equally if not more sustainable. In addition, the funding is initially allocated according to a formula based on need and size but then competitively adjusted for quality, resulting in the best of both worlds: localities can depend on sustainable funding but are incentivized to maximize that funding by planning and implementing successful evidence-based efforts. To be sure, some localities will struggle at first, but over time with the assistance of the crime analysis centers, training and technical assistance, and the GIVE network, local capacity to implement evidence-based programs with fidelity should increase dramatically. GIVE and Crime Analysis Centers How does GIVE work in practice? Under the new initiative, localities work with their crime analysis centers to identify the hot artificial—all these strategies incorporate elements of the others, people and hot spots in their jurisdiction, assess local resources, and but the GIVE initiative is the first example nationally that attempts engage partners and stakeholders. Next, localities prepare a plan to align and leverage the common elements of each strategy with using the six strategies and three core elements described above. intentionality. Finally, localities use GIVE funding and assistance, as well as their
12 www.cebcp.org GIVE will be evaluated by John Klofas and Rochester Institute of Technology, using a process evaluation of program implementation that focuses on fidelity to evidence-based strategies. There will also be an outcome assessment of GIVE’s impact on shootings and homi- cides, and the model and core components of the model will be well documented. In conclusion, GIVE is an ambitious effort that is unique in its scale and approach. It blends multiple evidence-based strategies with people and place-based focus. It stresses program fidelity and supports localities with a wide array of high-quality training and technical assistance. It allows for flexibility and variation across jurisdictions yet maintains a strict focus on one goal—fewer shoot- ings and killings. It has a strong and sustainable funding source that Buffalo’s Firearm-Related Hot Spots promotes accountability and competition at the same time. Finally, it establishes a statewide social network to promote broader culture and policy change over time. In the long run, GIVE promises to reduce own resources, to implement their plan. shootings and killings, improve law enforcement capacity statewide State agencies support local GIVE efforts in a variety of ways. to implement evidence-based and data-driven strategies, and teach DCJS, the lead agency at the state level, supports the local plans with us more about the opportunities and challenges associated with funding, training, and technical assistance. DCJS also manages the implementing such strategies in the real world. operations of the crime analysis centers and the GIVE network. Other agencies also play supporting roles, with the New York State References Police offering targeted field assistance and the Department of 1. Examples include the Center for the Study and Prevention of Corrections and Community Supervision and the Office of Proba- Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado tion and Correctional Alternatives supporting enhanced supervision Boulder, Blueprints for Healthy Youth Development, at www. of key people on parole or probation. blueprintsprograms.com; Campbell Collaboration, Campbell How does GIVE measure success? The initiative is single-mindedly Systematic Reviews, at www.campbellcollaboration.org/ focused on one key metric: shootings involving injury. This measure lib/?go=monograph; National Institute of Justice, CrimeSolutions. was selected because it is the best single unit of analysis: it is reported gov, at www.crimesolutions.gov; Coalition for Evidence-Based more consistently than shootings generally, it occurs more frequently, Policy, Top Tier Evidence, at www.toptierevidence.org. providing larger “N” to reduce “noise”—especially for smaller 2. Notable exceptions include the CrimeSolutions.gov practice page jurisdictions, it controls for exogenous factors, for example, emer- and the CEBCP’s own Evidence-Based Policing Matrix, at www. gency response speed and medical care quality. Finally, it promotes crimesolutions.gov/Programs.aspx#practices and cebcp.org/ clear messaging and accountability, allowing for improved evidence-based-policing/the-matrix, respectively, both of which implementation. synthesize available evidence to offer policy makers important It is clearly too soon to measure results, but localities have guidance not just on what works, but also how and why programs responded positively to the GIVE approach, proposing and now work in terms of practice. Both are excellent resources deserving implementing innovative efforts that combine multiple evidence- of more recognition and support. based strategies as expected. For example, in Buffalo, local law 3. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2012. enforcement partners have adopted a strategy similar to Los Angeles’ 4. DCJS, Uniform Crime/Incident-Based Reporting Systems successful Operation LASER, using enhanced crime analysis to (5/28/14). inform targeted people and place-based operations, as well as the use 5. Clearly, evidence-based prevention strategies are an integral part of sensor-activated lighting in key areas, streetworkers, and focused of a comprehensive approach to violence reduction. While GIVE deterrence “call-ins.” In Syracuse, local partners have built on their focuses only on strategies in which law enforcement plays a key already successful TRUCE focused deterrence model, adding role, it creates an overall framework in which enforcement, CPTED strategies to address vacant housing in key areas and using intervention, prevention, and reentry efforts can be aligned and increasing supervision and monitoring for known chronic firearm directed to the people and places that matter most. offenders.
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 13 The Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy congratulates its 2014 award winners—nine individuals committed to translating research into practice.
EVIDENCE-BASED POLICING HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES From left to right: Art Acevedo (Austin Police Department), Edward Flynn (Milwaukee Police Department), Timothy Hegarty (Riley County Police Department), Clark Kimerer (Seattle Police Department), Renee Mitchell (Sacramento Police Department), Alex Murray (West Midlands Police Service), and Roberto Santos (Port St. Lucie Police Department)
14 www.cebcp.org Dedication
Distinguished Achievement Award In Evidence-Based Crime Policy
Nicholas Fyfe Jeremy Travis Scottish Institute John Jay College for Policing Research of Criminal Justice
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 15 Looking Forward, Looking Back: Reflections on the Value of Evidence-Based Practices in Policing
BY CLARK KIMERER
Clark Kimerer served for 31 years with the Seattle Police Department, executives and leaders, right down to retiring this June as assistant chief. He was inducted into the Evidence- the officer on the street. The sciences Based Policing Hall of Fame this year for his contributions to institution- of forensics and criminology will solve alizing research into police practice. Below he shares his teaching crimes and identify leading-edge statement, an essay each of the Hall of Fame inductees can share with approaches and programs never before other law enforcement leaders as to how they achieved evidence-based imagined. And the new ethos of the policing. See cebcp.org/hall-of-fame to view all 28 members inducted police professional, which more and since 2010. more embraces sophisticated collabora- tions aimed at harm reduction, may be This essay asserts no claims to represent scholarly research, as befits this one of recent history’s most impressive important journal. It is intended, instead, to be a memoir occasioned by transformations in the civic arena. It is my recent induction into the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy Clark Kimerer this encouraging transformation on Hall of Fame, a recognition I regard with the highest gratitude and which this essay will focus. humility, all the more as it comes as I retire from the Seattle Police On a personal level, the seeds of my nascent interest in applied Department after 31 years of service, the last 16 as an assistant chief. It research to understand and ultimately structure government was truly an honor to be nominated by two friends and colleagues whom institutions were likely planted during my undergraduate years at I greatly admire: Karen Amendola and Jim Bueermann. My respect and Northwestern University and, ultimately, St. John’s College, home admiration for these two dedicated, smart, and compassionate leaders of the so-called Great Books curricula. (After 31 years with the finds an echo in my also thanking David Weisburd, who I am blessed to Seattle Police Department I can’t tell you the number of puzzled have as a mentor and a friend. It is customary for inductees to compose a looks I have received from my colleagues as I tried to describe St. teaching paper, a task I regard as an honor, for I see no nobler calling John’s.) The true teachers at St. John’s, history’s great thinkers, than that of striving always and everywhere to be a teacher. commended a life of ceaseless skepticism and relentless inquiry, and, hen I look back on the state of policing in U.S. major most important, the value of the search for truth. This passion, of cities (and with profound apologies to Charles Dickens), course, must find coexistence with the requirement for decisive I would characterize the past five years as the best and action, particularly in the police profession. The ethos that guided Wworst of times. Economic turbulence has more or less defined the my professional and personal life, then, was that we are put on this capacity of police agencies to undertake their most fundamental earth to question, learn, and enquire without cessation during the missions, let alone invest in research and innovation. The hue and cry time we are given and at the same time remember the admonition over the complex issues of procedural justice and police legitimacy of Rabbi Tarphon Pirke Abouth: “You are not required to complete are jeopardized by dumbing down and politicizing otherwise the work, but neither are you free to desist from it”—a weighty and profound subjects. And crime itself, which has heretofore been humbling construct for life. declining in most parts of the country, is itself transforming into a During my professional life, the seminal early and subsequent new array of threats—from terrorism to organized crime to exploit- work of David Weisburd and colleagues that we popularly label “hot ing cyber vulnerabilities—that are more sophisticated and potentially spot” policing (although more properly describable as the “policing consequential than in any time in our history. Against these realities of place”) was transformative. It is a matter of fundamental truth that is a backdrop of media and politically motivated campaigns to everything occurs in a place. The human endeavor, in all its complex- discredit and disempower policing and its agents. This is the worst ity, is anchored, second by second, in a location. Geospatial, as well part of the Dickensian formula. as temporal, coordinates are among the few characteristics that And now to the best: Police departments in this nation have never inhere in every important human event or activity. For police, this been more distinguished by scholarly, principled, and progressive includes criminal acts, victimization, the trajectories that bring
16 www.cebcp.org people in and out of incident locations, and the presence or absence excited delirium were then researched by emergency medical of people to observe or deter a crime, or, alternatively, that preclude personnel at the University of Washington Harborview Hospital, or obscure clear vision and options for action. Through analysis of which resulted in nationally recognized protocols on how to place, we open worlds of possibility to understand methods of intervene in such situations. A case report of one local incident was addressing and ameliorating human suffering. The policing of place published in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine in 2013. using evidence-based approaches is, in my humble estimation, as Patrick Joseph Mahar and colleagues’ article, “Pre-Hospital Resuscita- important to the history of the policing profession as any of our tion of a Man with Excited Delirium and Cardiopulmonary Arrest,” precedent pragmatic and intellectual “revolutions,” from the Basic noted that the police officers’ rapid recognition of the condition Car Plan to the Professional Model to the SARA Model. And in the likely resulted in the subject being resuscitated. quest to understand and apply this fundamental truth, Weisburd, his It is vital that we continue to search for ways to articulate and research partners, and the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy support policy-relevant research and build police models based on have been inspiring leaders. science and criminology rather than the gravitational pull of habit Looking ahead, I strongly believe that the linchpin of data-driven and tradition. We must redouble our efforts to encourage and applied research is collaboration. I will describe two such public support the next generation of police professionals—and, for that safety research collaborations—one with the human service provider matter, academic researchers—toward the vision of seeing researcher- community, one with the emergency medical system—that each practitioners in crucial roles in all public safety institutions. And, in produced substantive, life-saving projects and programs. closing, the best way I know to advocate for the building of a In 2008, I had a dual role as chair of the Downtown Emergency comprehensive system of researcher-practitioner collaborations Service Center (DESC) Board of Directors and as chief of staff of throughout the nation is to point out the obvious: Evidence-based the department. At that time, a groundbreaking project simply called programs can substantially impact crime, reduce victimization, and the “1811 Building,” after its address in the downtown core, opened save lives. For my part, that is precisely why I put on the uniform of its doors after almost three years of rancor and court battles. This a Seattle police officer 31 years ago. project was aimed at providing chronic public inebriates permanent supportive housing without conditions such as abstinence or treatment adherence. The blasted lives of late-stage alcoholics wandering the streets of Seattle provided a powerful impetus to find humane alternatives. But this was scarcely a mainstream approach, and both the DESC Board and the Seattle Police Department were Potential of Technology, continued from page 10 continuously challenged to defend this project with evidentiary and other fact-based analysis. The most compelling evidence about the efficacy of this project occurred after its first year of operation, when the October 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Medical technology may produce, and the cost efficiency of technology. In Association published findings about the cost savings and decrease in addition, research is needed to clarify what organizational strategies use of public services, including criminal justice and law enforce- with respect to training, implementation, management, and ment. Among their findings was a reduction in annual average costs evaluation are most effective for achieving desired outcomes with of almost $63,000 of publicly funded programs per client, resulting technology and avoiding potentially negative unintended in a net savings of more than $4 million taxpayer dollars. consequences. The second significant researcher-practitioner collaboration In all these ways, we would hope that greater attention to technol- focused on a medical condition defined as metabolic acidosis, which ogy implementation and evaluation by police and researchers can police and emergency medical personnel refer to as the nightmarish help police agencies optimize technology decisions and fully realize encounter of subjects experiencing “excited delirium.” Subjects in the potential benefits of technology for policing. this state, in addition to displaying bizarre behaviors and utterances, demonstrate unusual strength and combativeness. Their condition is one of extreme medical crisis and without accurate recognition and appropriate handling of such subjects may result in an in-custody death. The Seattle Police Department took on this issue by rigorously documenting encounters with potential excited delirium subjects and then working with fire department EMTs and the local level one emergency room to develop a protocol for handling such cases. As a consequence, cases identified by officers as potentially involving
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 17 The Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based Crime Policy The Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based Crime Policy is the highest honor given by the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) each year in recognition of outstanding achievements and contributions by individuals in academia, practice, or the policy arena who are committed to a leadership role in advancing the use of scientific research evidence in decisions about crime and justice policies. This year’s award winners are Nicholas Fyfe from the University of Dundee (who will be honored with the award in Scotland in October) and Jeremy Travis from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who received the award at the CEBCP June symposium. The following are President Travis’s remarks on receiving the award at George Mason University.
To David Weisburd, Cynthia Lum, friends, and colleagues: here today, who served then and again in the Obama administration as hank you for that generous introduction, David. I treasure assistant attorney general for justice our friendship over the years and consider myself one of your programs. It was Laurie, with the students. You have taught me invaluable lessons about the support and guidance of Ms. Reno, Trole of the police, the nature of crime, the importance of scientific who made it possible for NIJ to become rigor, and new ways to think about our response to crime. And thank the science agency it is today—and to you, Cynthia, for your leadership on promoting a new generation advance the cause of evidence-based of policing research. Our field has high hopes for your success. crime policy. It is fitting that I am here I wish to commend my fellow honorees today. Each of you is a at George Mason, which has the good true champion, and your induction into the Hall of Fame for fortune to count Laurie among its Evidence-Based Policing reflects your extraordinary professional Jeremy Travis faculty, to accept an award recognizing commitment and personal creativity. Your service has benefited your the work that we did together. It is also instructive to remember that communities in immeasurable ways, and I am proud to stand with these two decades have seen enormous progress on this agenda and you at this ceremony. that the cause of evidence-based crime policy has seen another I am humbled more than words can say by the decision of the champion in another attorney general, Eric Holder, who also learned Center on Evidence-Based Crime Policy to present me with the his craft under the mentorship of Janet Reno. Distinguished Achievement Award for my work in this field, and Remembering the legacy of Janet Reno provides the appropriate I am particularly grateful to the nominating committee for recom- framework for the thoughts I would like to share today. It is instruc- mending me. The award would be honor enough, but to receive this tive to remember that Janet Reno majored in chemistry at Cornell. award today, before an audience with so many friends from so many She had the razor sharp mind of a scientist who valued the process of different chapters of my life, is truly a deeply moving moment. As intellectual discovery, respected the independence of the scholar, and I look at the people in this room, I am struck by the close-knit nature knew that the research process is not always quick, and the answers of our community of criminal justice professionals, researchers, are not always clear. Yet we should also remember that Janet Reno practitioners, and reformers. Each one of you has played a role in my was a politician. She ran for office as states attorney in Miami-Dade personal development. You have stretched my worldview, deepened County and knew the importance of listening to the public, testing my understanding of the issues we confront, and helped me confront her ideas in the messy arena of everyday discourse, and respecting our my own limitations. So I feel indebted to you as I receive this honor democratic institutions. These two parts of her—the scientist and the today. politician—were sometimes at odds, but more often she was able to I am particularly struck by the passage of time represented in this integrate them into her approach to the pressing issues of crime and room. As I was preparing for this ceremony, I reflected on a fact that justice. is both sobering and instructive. It is 20 years ago this summer that As we think about the process of developing an evidence-based Susan and I packed our daughters, Aliza and Zoe, into the car and approach to crime policy, we should seek to emulate this dual moved from New York City to Washington, D.C. I had decided to attention to science and democracy. To expand on this thought, I accept the offer from Janet Reno, our attorney general, to join the would like to share some personal observations based on my recent Clinton administration as director of the National Institute of stint as chair of the consensus panel of the National Academy of Justice. One of the reasons I was so excited about that opportunity Sciences (NAS) that produced the report, The Growth of Incarceration was the prospect of working closely with Laurie Robinson, who is in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences. This report,
18 www.cebcp.org which was released on April 30, reflects the work of 20 scholars and experts who labored hard to arrive at a consensus on two questions posed by the National Academy of Sciences: how do we explain the four-fold increase in incarceration rates over the past 40 years, following 50 years of stability, and how do we assess the consequences of this unprecedented reliance on prison as a response to crime? Because we were convened by the NAS, we were of course constrained to an assessment of the “evidence” on these two questions. So at a conference on evidence-based crime policy, I would like to share some thoughts on the journey our panel traveled to assess this evidence. The first point to highlight is that our panel included Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy (CEBCP) executive director historians, economists, political scientists, criminologists, psycholo- David Weisburd (L) and co-director Cynthia Lum (R) congratulate gists, legal philosophers, public policy experts, and practitioners. So, Distinguished Achievement Award in Evidence-Based Crime Policy as you can imagine, we had lively discussions about what constitutes awardee Jeremy Travis at the 2014 CEBCP-IDB annual symposium “evidence.” I believe that one of the major contributions of our at Mason’s Arlington, Virginia, campus. report is to bring together evidence from a variety of disciplines and weave that evidence into a single narrative that explains our history punishment should fit the crime); “parsimony” (that the state is not and presents a picture of the effects of our current high rates of authorized to inflict pain on its citizens beyond that necessary to incarceration. In thinking about evidence-based crime policy in the achieve a legitimate social purpose); “citizenship” (that the individu- future, we need to reach out to these disciplines to bring multiple als in prison should be treated with human dignity and that the scholarly perspectives to the table. Otherwise, our understanding of prison experience should not so diminish their status that their the world we seek to explore will be limited and therefore our ability reintegration is thwarted); and “social justice” (that, as a social to define pathways for future policy will be stunted. institution, prisons should aspire to serve the ends of justice and But our NAS panel reached an impasse when we faced our third should be democratically accountable). assignment—we were expected to describe the implications of the If you read only one chapter of the NAS report, I would strongly evidence on the reasons behind the build-up in prisons and the recommend Chapter 12. It reminds us of the important role of impact of these incarceration rates. We felt that the typical model of prisons in our society, the appropriate limits of the power of the state cost-benefit was an inappropriate way to think about the proper use to deprive its citizens of their liberty, and the respect for human of prison in a democracy. The framework that occupies most policy dignity that should be afforded to our fellow citizens by everyone debates—stated as, if we reduce prisons by X percent, can we afford a who works in the criminal justice system. These principles resonate crime increase of Y percent, or if we shorten the sentence by A with the politician side of Janet Reno. Inspired by her example, months, how much will crime increase?—was not only scientifically we should remember that in considering the role of prisons and uncertain, but fundamentally inappropriate. Yes, our panel did arrive punishment in our democracy, these principles should always infuse at conclusions about the low public safety benefits of very long and guide our commitment to developing crime policies that are sentences and mandatory minimums; we did summarize the based on strong evidence. evidence showing the scant benefits of the 10-fold increase in We have so much work ahead of us. Crime rates are still far too incarceration rates for drug offenses, but we wanted to remind our high, particularly in communities of color in urban America. As the readers that these are not the only considerations in developing NAS panel report concludes, our incarceration rates are also too future policy directions for the country. high, far outside the experience of any other Western democracy. The To help frame our recommendations, we reviewed the scholarly interactions between the police and young people, particularly in literature on four principles. You may think it unusual that a report minority neighborhoods, tend to undermine the respect for the rule of the National Academy of Sciences would speak in a normative of law that is a bedrock for our democracy. Our treatment of crime voice, but we found it important to review a different kind of victims is highly inadequate, leaving millions of Americans damaged “evidence”—the evidence on first principles in our democracy, value and struggling to recover from the harms they have suffered. Our propositions that have a long and honored tradition in Western systems that administer justice are poorly resourced and struggling thought. Accordingly, in Chapter 12, after we completed our to embrace innovation. assessment of the empirical evidence, we trace the lineage of four So we have much to do. In the work ahead, the role of the principles that we assert should guide the policy discussions in movement for evidence-based crime policy is essential to our success. the future. They are the principles of “proportionality” (that the Continued on page 27
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 19 Practical Research to Address School Safety: The Secret Service-U.S. Department of Education Safe Schools Initiative1
BY WILLIAM MODZELESKI, ANTHONY PETROSINO, SARAH GUCKENBURG, AND TREVOR FRONIUS
William Modzeleski is the former associate assistant deputy secretary, Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, U.S. Department of Education.
Anthony Petrosino is a senior research associate, WestEd and Senior Research Fellow, Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy.
Sarah Guckenburg is a senior research associate, WestEd.
Trevor Fronius is a research associate, WestEd.
he mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012 once again focused the lens of the education, William Modzeleski Anthony Petrosino justice, and public health communities on the safety of Tstudents and staff in the nation’s schools. Understandably, legislators, school boards, educational administrators, and law enforcement have attempted to respond quickly with a flurry of legislative and policy actions proposed and implemented since the massacre occurred. Education Week finds that more than 40 percent of these policies focus on putting armed police or security in schools. Other policies proposed and some enacted, include arming teachers or administra- tors, bringing attack dogs onto school grounds, installing bulletproof glass, and training students and staff on how to disable an active shooter.2 Unfortunately, the rush to enact such practices across the nation Sarah Guckenburg Trevor Fronius has not been accompanied by a resolution to evaluate the impact of such initiatives. Without evaluation, we are unable to determine improving school climate and safety, have enjoyed bipartisan support whether these policies really do make the schools safer or whether from federal legislators. And Congress stunned the criminological they could have unintended negative consequences such as increasing and education communities by providing an unprecedented the pipeline to prison or harming the learning environment. $75 million to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in 2014 to Policy makers and practitioners are empowered by their positions conduct scientific research in support of school safety, an appropria- and role authority to take action in the wake of such tragedies. tion larger than NIJ’s typical annual budget of $60 million and about (Although one could argue they also have a responsibility to under- three times more than NIJ’s usual discretionary funding for social stand the outcomes of these actions to ensure they do not create science research projects. The goal of Congress and NIJ is to produce more harm.) It is not the role of research and evaluation to dictate research that will be truly translational and move beyond the these policy decisions, but carefully executed studies can help guide scientific community and its journals to the grassroots where it can decision makers through a conscientious and intentional examina- influence which practices are maintained, which ones are modified, tion of what the evidence is and what it suggests. and which ones should be eliminated. But is the field ready to move The Sandy Hook massacre also set in motion a number of new in this direction? initiatives at the federal level. For example, the president responded For an example of the kind of translational research needed in to the incident by setting out four major policy priorities in Now Is the school safety arena, the field should look to the Safe Schools the Time.3 Two of these, access to mental health services and Initiative (SSI),4 a joint effort of the U.S. Secret Service and
20 www.cebcp.org Department of Education conducted in the late 1990s. The SSI was Contrary to common perceptions, the attackers in the study did not a careful descriptive assessment of the perpetrators of targeted school just snap. These were not acts of impulsive individuals; in fact, many violence that asked, is school violence impulsive or planned? Did the of the school attackers planned the crimes for some time, even weeks perpetrators signal their intentions? Did students, staff, or others and months, before carrying out the attacks. Another finding was know anything about the attack prior to its occurrence? The study that the attackers almost always confided in someone, usually a sets the stage for understanding some of the key features of school friend, another student, or multiple students, about what they were violence and improving the development and targeting of going to do. The fact that students planning such attacks talk to interventions. others provides an opportunity to intervene and interrupt the pathway to violence. The SSI reports also underscored the impor- The SSI tance of a behavioral profile, i.e., who the students talked to, what Like today, the mid-to-late 1990s was a time of time of considerable they said, how they acquired weapons, whether they posted threats concern about school safety generated by high-profile school shoot- to social media, and so forth. But the main report also stressed that ings perpetrated by students. Shootings in Paducah, Kentucky; Little although there are some commonalities across the school attackers, Rock, Arkansas; Springfield, Oregon; and Pearl, Mississippi, shocked such demographic or other nonbehavioral characteristics are so the nation, but it was the April 1999 mass killing at Columbine common that there is no way to profile such students using them. High School in Littleton, Colorado, that left 13 students, a teacher, In addition to the full report, the other two reports produced were and the two killers dead that galvanized the attention of government, on bystanders6 and threat assessment. For the report on bystanders, media, and the research community. Along with the flurry of investigators went back to the schools where incidents occurred and legislation generated by Columbine came the opportunity for interviewed students who knew something about the attack plans research by anecdote: reacting to a high-profile event with a system- beforehand but did not come forward. Although they had heard the atic research study—the SSI. perpetrator make statements about doing something, a key finding The impetus for the study came from the U.S. Secret Service. was that they either did not feel comfortable talking to someone or Then-agency director, Brian Stafford, met with then-secretary of the did not trust that adults in the school would keep their identity U.S. Department of Education, Richard Riley, and their staffs about private. This finding reinforced the need for attention to school conducting a study of school shooters. The Secret Service had just culture and climate, so that youth feel empowered to share such vital finished a well-regarded study of persons arrested for making threats information. Those with prior knowledge also shared the difficulty to political figures5 and proposed to apply the same case study they had in deciding whether to take threats seriously, particularly approach to school attackers. Much to the credit of Stafford, there when the eventual perpetrator had a history of talking that way all was immediate consensus that such a study would need to be a joint the time, perhaps to seek attention, but never actually engaged in effort between the two agencies to increase its credibility and reach in behavior that brought them to the attention of police or school guiding policy and practice. Leadership on the project included staff officials.7 from the Secret Service, such as Bryan Vossekuil and Robert Fein It is a credit to the Secret Service that, despite its role as a federal (codirectors of the Secret Service’s National Violence Prevention and law enforcement agency, its leadership was fully collaborative with Study Center), and the Department of Education’s William Modze- the Department of Education throughout the study and unani- leski (then-director of its Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools). In mously agreed that the findings from the SSI did not support an addition, leading researchers with other vital perspectives such as argument for increasing security and police presence as the answer. mental health and threat assessment, including Marisa Reddy The results instead underscored the importance of changing school Randazzo, chief research psychologist at Secret Service’s National culture and climate so that kids feel comfortable talking to each other Threat Assessment Center, and Randy Borum, associate professor of and to staff, and empowered to report threats. The findings also mental health law and policy from the University of South Florida, supported the need for a better understanding of the mental health were also included in the project. needs of students. To have the most relevance to incidents such as Columbine, the Thanks to the collaboration between these two major federal team decided that targeted school shootings had to be the focus of agencies, the SSI findings8 were well received and have been influen- the study, rather than cases of gang-related shootings, workplace tial in the field. For example, the second report of the series on threat violence, or domestic incidents within schools. Searches of public assessment9 laid the foundation for subsequent research and records dating back to 1975 and contact with schools and law initiatives on identifying student threats. Threat assessment is now a enforcement identified 37 distinct cases involving 41 perpetrators key feature of the most proactive school safety plans, and its of targeted school violence through 2002. importance was reinforced by the task force that synthesized reports The SSI produced three complementary reports. The main report following the Virginia Tech massacre10 and the president’s Now Is the revealed several key findings from the study of school attackers. Time report. The SSI was the foundation for the understanding that
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 21 most threats are made by students within their own schools and that low; in fact, an armed police officer was present at Columbine and they do send signals such as bragging about “doing something big,” traded shots with the attackers but did not subdue them. But acquiring a weapon, posting threats on social media, and so on. A information on how their role can be improved and standardized strong threat assessment program in schools can help officials focus through better training and oversight can be applied immediately in on those students who are on a pathway toward violence. school settings. Research is needed to answer these questions and help schools implement the solutions. Future Research Adding to these major research questions is the fact that the Sandy Although research on school violence waned considerably until this Hook killer, Adam Lanza, was not a current student. Sandy Hook is past year’s congressional appropriation to NIJ, the shooting massacre different, then, from the murders that inspired SSI and highlights a in 2007 at Virginia Tech that left 33 persons dead (including the need for more research on services around transition periods. When killer) spurred on a new initiative. The Secret Service, Department of someone such as Lanza leaves the school system because of graduation Education, and the FBI attempted to follow the success of SSI with a or dropping out, staff sometimes breathe a deep sigh of relief at “not similar study on targeted violence in higher education institutions. having to deal with the problem” any longer. The former student falls The three agencies issued a preliminary report,11 and the FBI and off the radar—services are no longer provided and records are closed. Department of Education are currently collecting and assessing the So how do we stop these youth from falling through the cracks? data needed for Phase II of the study. Once completed, this study will provide stakeholders with more detailed information on targeted Conclusion attacks that have occurred at U.S. colleges and universities that can We need sound research that addresses climate, culture, and safety in be used to shape prevention and response plans. the nation’s schools and is not only rigorously designed but also But much more needs to be done. Despite increased research over relevant to those who need the information the most. The NIJ school the past 15 years, three areas warrant additional attention: the mental safety solicitation is a prime opportunity to develop a body of health needs of youth, their use of social media in making threats, research that is not only rigorously designed but also relevant to and the proper role of law enforcement. those who need the information the most—federal, state, and local Although the SSI did discuss mental health, the Sandy Hook policy makers and the school practitioners and law enforcement massacre has elevated the discussion about access and services for professionals who need to make decisions and take action that children and adolescents to a higher level. Educators and stakehold- directly impacts the safety of students and school staff. ers need more research on processes to distinguish serious mental health disorders from normal adolescent rebellion, and tools to guide References their decisions to intervene. 1. The authors thank Charlotte Gill of the Center for Evidence- The use of social media in threats is an emerging and important Based Crime Policy, and Kyungseok Choo, Pamela Macdougall, direction for research. Should schools be mining social media to Claire Morgan, and Noel White of WestEd for their helpful identify threats against students and staff, or is this the domain of law comments. enforcement? How can threats made on social media outlets be 2. www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/school-safety-bills-since- identified quickly? And how can it be done in a way that respects the newtown.html privacy and rights of youth? Students often use social media outlets 3. www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/wh_now_is_the_ such as Facebook to vent and make threats that may or may not be time_full.pdf substantive. Schools or law enforcement agencies could not possibly 4. www.secretservice.gov/ntac_ssi.shtml follow up on all of them. What other data are needed to triage 5. www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ntac_jfs.pdf threats and better inform threat assessments to allow schools to find 6. www.secretservice.gov/ntac/bystander_study.pdf the proverbial needle in a haystack: the youth that officials need to be 7. Pollack, W. S., W. Modzeleski, and G. Rooney (2008). “Prior paying attention to because the students are on a pathway to Knowledge of Potential School-Based Violence: Information violence? Students Learn May Prevent a Targeted Attack.” Washington, We also need studies to help determine the appropriate role for law DC: U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education. enforcement in school safety. How can police mitigate threats 8. www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf without adding to the school-to-prison pipeline? It is clear that police 9. www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_guide.pdf are not going to be taken out of schools any time soon—educators 10. www.iaclea.org/visitors/PDFs/VT-taskforce-report_Virginia-Tech. and parents want them there. Most of these tragic events are over pdf within a few minutes, and although law enforcement has a role, it is 11. www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/campus-attacks clear that the likelihood of police stopping a targeted school attack is
22 www.cebcp.org Developing and Sustaining an International Researcher-Practitioner Partnership
BY PETER MARTIN AND GEOFFREY ALPERT
Peter Martin is assistant commissioner of the Queensland Police Service, Brisbane, Australia. Geoffrey Alpert is a professor at the University of South Carolina and Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.
onducting research in any environment has its challenges. Research in a police organization involves carefully crafted explanations, methodology, and a feedback loop that is Ctimely and comprehensive. An interesting wrinkle of our partnership is the international component: an American working with an Australian police department. Here we explain a few barriers and Peter Martin Geoffrey Alpert obstacles to becoming successful in a researcher-practitioner great deal of rhetoric around developing relationships, our experience partnership. suggests the importance of developing trust and confidence before As we all recognize, the police are cynical and may distrust asking for anything. We were able to meet informally and formally researchers and question why they are conducting a study. Whether to learn from each other—to learn the interests and needs of the in America, Great Britain, or Australia, it is critical to combine a organizations and to learn about the interests and abilities of the researcher who is comfortable in challenging environments and a researcher. Only after a level of comfort was created were we able ranking officer who will “own” the research and be a spokesperson to discuss a research project that met our institutional needs and for it. To develop that partnership, the parties must enter into a personal interests. Fortunately, our colleague Lorraine Mazerolle at relationship that is transparent, mutually beneficial, and interesting. the University of Queensland has a rich history of conducting Our research partnership developed over a period of months before research with the QPS and was an amazing resource who helped any studies were discussed or designed. pave the way and open doors at the agency. Many partnerships begin with an institutional history, wherein We created an institutional research board, consisting of 10 officers researchers from a university have some degree of history with the at different ranks and assignments to help us think through impor- agency. For example, when the American researcher approached the tant projects and ideas. Again, without the assistance of the primary Australian agency, he was representing Griffith University, a local agency partner, these officers may not have been available or institution in Brisbane, which had several researchers who had done interested in helping design and review the research instruments and work in the past, with different levels of success and accomplishment. methodological twists. These officers also helped pave the way for our While this institutional relationship made it easy to begin a discus- projects with officers at lower ranks but who held important sion, it did not guarantee any formal agreements. In this case, the positions within the agency. foreign researcher had to earn the trust and confidence of the While the international nature of our relationship may pose some Queensland Police Service (QPS), or at least of the decision makers unique challenges, the needs of the organizations remain constant, who would make it possible to gain access to data and people. Unlike regardless of the setting. Progressive agencies such as the QPS want conducting research in one’s home country, where a chief or research to base their decisions on evidence and are willing to take some risk, director can pick up the phone and call a friend who has worked and use some resources to develop that information. As in any with the researcher in the past, this international context often academic setting, research, publications, and impact form the requires potential partners to start a relationship without benefit of currency. These issues need to be discussed and understood upfront— an introduction or intellectual “set-up.” where both partners have a good understanding of what is expected In our case, we met for months discussing different areas of and how the expectations will be met. policing, differences in our experiences in America and Australia, Developing this first relationship is critical but only one step in and different types of inquiry, styles of research, and other peripheral conducting research and forming a partnership with an agency. Once issues before any specific project was introduced. While there is a
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 23 the relationship has some history and mutual interests on several As we began to design this replication, we realized that while the levels, others in the agency must buy into the researcher and his or QPS was a full partner and sponsor of the study, the union and its her ideas. Similarly, while the researcher may be the primary contact, communication often influenced recruits. We were able to meet with others in the academic institution must be acceptable to the agency the union representatives and after explaining the potential benefits and its officers. Widening the scope of the partnership is important, and costs of the research, they became our full partners in the project. and this step is best achieved by the police manager’s making inroads We are more than a year into our data collection and hope to begin for the researcher and introducing him or her to agency personnel our analysis of the data and an international comparison with who will be sympathetic to the idea of conducting research and the Rosenbaum in the next year. associated costs. It is the researcher’s ability to explain the ideas or We have also applied for funding from the Australian Research projects in such a way that the anticipated results will be vital to the Council with Porter as principal investigator to continue data agency, and the resources and sacrifices will be worth the anticipated collection and analysis. results. The research partnership that developed between the QPS and We began our partnership with relatively simple projects of Griffith University had been ongoing for several years before it grew importance to the organization. Our first study was on the use of to its current state. Certainly, other researchers and police officials force and conducted electronic weapons. As in any police depart- had participated in its development and the current commissioner, ment, these topics have important issues related to officer safety and Ian Stewart and assistant commissioner Peter Martin are members of public opinion in Queensland. While neither party discussed this as the Evidence-Based Policing Hall of Fame. The partnership that has a “test case,” it was clear that the agency did not want to open itself developed between the authors of this essay and the QPS and to a major exposé but did want an independent person to investigate Griffith University has been successful through the efforts of all the outcomes of police-citizen encounters and the use of force. participants. Many QPS officers and Griffith academics have played Similarly, the researchers wanted to be careful to look at the proper important roles in the development and nurturing of the partnership. data, talk with the right people, and report accurately the data and This effort will have to continue to sustain the partnership. New findings. The next few projects were all analyses of existing data on ideas and new people will have to understand the complexities and pursuit driving and aspects of force, including evaluations of policies work through the many challenges that exist and will surface. and training. The research scope slowly expanded as the partnership We have learned a great deal about researcher-practitioner partner- became more stable, trusting, and credible. ships over the past few years. Jeff Rojek at the University of Texas, El While all partnerships have challenges, ours developed well and Paso, has been the leading young scholar who has developed strategic increased in the number and scope of research projects. We were able insights into these partnerships. In fact, he joined with Alpert (Alpert to bring in other researchers from Griffith University and widen the et al., 2013) and assistant commissioner Martin and Alpert (Rojek et nature and scope of the research agenda. One strategic move was to al., 2014) to conduct the most recent and innovative research on the more fully develop relationships at the training academy. Because we topic and has written the most comprehensive treatise on these had conducted a study evaluating role-play scenario training on use partnerships. of force, we had strong relationships with some of the staff. Again, it The major goals of these collaborations are to conduct research that is impossible to overstate the importance of having a senior com- provides evidence for policy maker, and have an impact on future mand-level officer make an introduction, but once the door is open, leaders in the academic and practitioner arenas. The future of police researchers must navigate through and develop and strengthen their researcher-practitioner partnerships both nationally and internation- own relationships. ally is promising. After months of discussing potential projects, we asked Dennis Rosenbaum at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the principal References investigator of the National Police Research Platform in the United 1. Alpert, G., J. Rojek, and J. A. Hansen (2013). Building Bridges States, to join us in a partial replication of the recruit aspect of the between Police Researchers and Practitioners: Agents of Change in a National Platform. The research team that includes Louise Porter and Complex World. A Final Report to the National Institute of Justice Tina Murphy from Griffith discussed the best way to replicate the (2009-IJ-CX-0204). recruit study, so it would be meaningful in an Australian context and 2. Rojek, J., P. Martin, and G. Alpert (2014). Developing and we would be able to have comparable international data on these Maintaining Police-Researcher Partnerships to Facilitate Research new officers. With support and assistance from Rosenbaum, mem- Use: A Comparative Analysis. New York: Springer Publishers. bers of the partnership worked through a survey instrument and methodology that was acceptable to the QPS and our standards of data collection.
24 www.cebcp.org Juvenile Lifers: Translating Research through the Documentary Film Lost for Life By Katharine C. Staley, PhD, and Joshua Rofé
Katharine C. Staley, formerly the associate director of the Justice Center for Research at Pennsylvania State University, is now a consultant on issues regarding child trauma and maltreatment, including how these pertain to juveniles in the justice system. Joshua Rofé is a documentary filmmaker and works on projects related to the justice system.
he 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision Miller v. Alabama declared that mandatory life without parole (LWOP) sentences for juveniles convicted of homicide constituted “cruelT and unusual punishment,” violating the Constitution’s Eighth Katharine C. Staley Joshua Rofé Amendment. As of 2012, approximately 2,500 convicted individuals those 2,500 convicted individuals, change is finally coming, but it is were serving LWOP sentences nationwide for crimes committed slow. According to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth,10 when they were younger than 18 years old. In a series of earlier since the 2012 decision, the legislators of only six states (West decisions, the Supreme Court similarly ruled that juveniles serving Virginia, Delaware, Hawaii, Texas, Wyoming, and Massachusetts) LWOP sentences for crimes other than homicide was unconstitutional have abolished LWOP sentences for all juveniles; and Washington (Graham v. Florida, 2010), as was use of the death penalty for those did so for those under age 16, making it discretionary for 16 and 17 under the age of 18 (Roper v. Simmons, 2005). These decisions were year olds, while California and Florida severely limited it. Further, the result, in part, of a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting what most parents, teachers, and sports coaches have long known to five state high courts have decided that Miller should be applied be true—that adolescents have a higher propensity than adults to retroactively to those currently serving LWOP sentences. In contrast, make decisions that are both poor and impulsive and to disregard, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, a state that boasts the notoriety or not sufficiently weigh, the consequences of those decisions.1 of having the highest number of LWOP juveniles (more than 440), The increasing use of imaging studies (fMRI primarily) on declined to retroactively apply this ruling in early 2014. And yet, the adolescent brains in the past decade has given credence to this majority of U.S. citizens remain unaware of this issue. intuitive and experience-based knowledge. Studies have shown that The research that made such an impact on the Supreme Court and an area of the forebrain known as the prefrontal cortex shows clear is now influencing several state high courts is not reaching the public. signs of differential “lighting up” when comparing adolescents and As a consequence, documentary films (and films based on real-life adults on tasks assessing decision making,2 delay of gratification,3 stories such as Dead Man Walking and The Hurricane) are becoming planning ahead,4 risk aversion,5 reward processing,6 and impulse ever more critical as translators of criminal justice issues and control.7 As Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist studying adolescence, accompanying research. They are serving the role of accessibly, stated, “The court’s decisions have been increasingly influenced by engaging and informing both the public and policy makers alike. findings from studies of brain development to support the position Lost for Life, a documentary film about juveniles serving LWOP that adolescents are less mature than adults in ways that mitigate sentences and directed by the second author, is just such a film and their criminal culpability, and that adolescents’ diminished blame- exemplifies the inherent translational impact and power of this worthiness makes it inappropriate to sentence them in ways that are medium. reserved for individuals who are deemed fully responsible for their One of us (Rofé) can personally attest to the dilemmas and acts (p. 513).” 8 emotional tugs-of-war engendered within the issue of juveniles The United States is the only country in the world that permits sentenced to life without parole. For Lost for Life, Rofé wanted to tell juveniles to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility the stories of those who are guilty. A story of the kids we see on the of parole.9 Although not all 50 states used mandatory LWOP news that had committed crimes of unimaginable heinousness. What sentencing for juveniles prior to 2012, the majority did, and for happened in their lives that led them to commit their crimes? Were
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 25 they capable of change? A sentence of juvenile LWOP says they are spark discussion rather than provide answers. I want my students to incapable of evolving. Was redemption possible, or were they truly really understand that what we are studying isn’t just a set of statistics “lost for life?” or an issue; it’s a life, a person.” The research for Lost for Life occurred during a span of almost five And that is what Lost for Life offers in a visceral and compelling years. Everything Rofé learned about and related to juvenile LWOP way; the viewer cannot get lost in data, cannot forget that “kids”— was gathered while sitting with those who live it; in the living rooms even ones convicted of violent crimes—are in prison for life. When of the families of the incarcerated and of the victims, in prisons with the Pennsylvania State University Justice Center for Research brought the offenders, with the district attorneys and defense attorneys, with advocates and social workers. All those meetings and the research that went into this film were deliberate, but it all started from a chance meeting at a party with a judge from Florida who told me about a 15-year-old girl he had sentenced to LWOP for shooting a cab driver in the back of the head and killing him. The sentence was mandatory because it was a first-degree murder conviction, but the judge went on to tell me that he still questioned the merits of that sentence. During the trial he learned of the horrifically traumatic childhood that she had had; in a sense he got to know her. One of the facts learned early on about juvenile LWOP was particularly shocking. Juvenile lifers are often sent to solitary confinement for upwards of a decade until prison officials deem them physically capable of handling themselves among the general prison population. That means a 23-hour lockdown per day in a small cell. The 24th hour is often given in the middle of the night for the purpose of exercise—all while still being isolated from others. This may seem beyond comprehension; it was for Rofé. Then he got to know Jacob Ind of Colorado. Ind was sentenced to two LWOP sentences for killing his mother and stepfather. He had just turned 15. Ind had survived 10 years of being raped, beaten, and told he was worthless by his mother and stepfather. The abuse was frequent and horrific, and it existed under the guise of a mountain town suburban Rofé and his film to campus this spring, the response was exuber- dream. Inside a wood paneled cabin, starting at age four, Ind was ant—an overflowing turnout of students, faculty, and community regularly chained to the toilet and given enemas by his mother to members at the evening viewing of the film and subsequent panel “prepare” him for his stepfather. Eleven years later he decided it was discussion. Question after question from the audience revealed their time to make it stop. He shot them both. By the time Ind had waded emotional and thoughtful engagement with what they had just through the trials and sentencing, he entered a maximum-security seen—and their desire to know more about this issue. prison at age 17. He didn’t leave solitary confinement until he was The impact on state and federal policy is perhaps more clear for 25 years old. this film than many others; in 2013, Rofé was the first ever film- Films can be a powerful translator of research knowledge. Paula maker to take part in the Inaugural Policy Engagement Program Smith, an associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the of the American Film Institute’s Documentary Film Festival. In University of Cincinnati, teaches a highly attended undergraduate addition to meeting with the White House Office of Public Engage- course each fall titled Criminal Justice and Film. When asked why ment to explore areas such as film campaigns that are ripe for greater she teaches such a class, Smith said, “Films are a great vehicle for collaboration, he went to Capitol Hill and met with the staff of generating discussions about topics in this arena. They put a name, several policy makers, e.g., Michigan representative John Conyers a face, and a context to academic topics. Films evoke questions and of the House Judiciary Committee, Colorado senator Mark Udall,
26 www.cebcp.org Georgia senator Saxby Chambliss, and Virginia representative Bobby Aversion from Early Childhood to Adulthood. Frontiers in Scott (the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee’s Human Neuroscience, 5 doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/ subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and fnhum.2011.00178. Investigations) to discuss his film and the issue of juvenile LWOP. 6. Padmanabhan, A., Geier, C. F., Ordaz, S. J., Teslovich, T., and As documentary films increasingly become an effective language to Luna, B. (2011). Developmental Changes in Brain Function engage both the public and private sectors, policy makers are, in Underlying the Influence of Reward Processing on Inhibitory response, more interested in strategies that use these films to inform Control. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience 1(4), 517-529. the public and provoke discussion with an eye toward catalyzing doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2011.06.004. substantive policy change. Lost for Life is an intimate portrayal of a 7. Jaeger, A. (2013). Inhibitory Control and the Adolescent Brain: complex and disturbing topic, one that can indeed often be “faceless.” A Review of fMRI Research. Psychology & Neuroscience 6(1), The use of such films captures both the audience’s attention and their 23-30. Retrieved from search.proquest.com/docview/141105935 emotions, motivating them to question their own beliefs and 0?accountid=13158. understandings and to engage each other in debating some of the 8. Steinberg, L. (2013). The Influence of Neuroscience on U.S. most difficult questions in the American justice system. Lost for Life Supreme Court Decisions about Adolescents’ Criminal Culpabil- is an intimate account from the killers themselves, as we watch them ity. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 14(7), 513-518. Retrieved from wrestle with not only what they have done, but who they hope to search.proquest.com/docview/1411060992?accountid=13158. become . . . and then, ultimately, does it even matter? 9. Human Rights Watch. www.hrw.org/news/2014/03/24/ human-rights-watch-amicus-brief-juvenile-life-without-parole- References sentences. 1. Pope, K., Luna, B., and Thomas, C. R. (2012). Developmental 10. The Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth. fairsentencing Neuroscience and the Courts: How Science Is Influencing the ofyouth.org. Disposition of Juvenile Offenders. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry 51(4), 341-342. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2012.01.003. 2. Christakou, A., Gershman, S. J., Niv, Y., Simmons, A., Brammer, M., and Rubia, K. (2013). Neural and Psychological Maturation of Decision-making in Adolescence and Young Adulthood. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 25(11), 1807-1823. doi:http:// dx.doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_00447. 3. Christakou, A., Brammer, M., and Rubia, K. (2011). Maturation Distinguished Achievement Award, continued from page 19 of Limbic Corticostriatal Activation and Connectivity Associated with Developmental Changes in Temporal Discounting. Neuro- Image, 54(2), 1344-1354. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j. The lead proponent of this approach is your Center for Evidence- neuroimage.2010.08.067. Based Crime Policy at George Mason. You should be proud of the 4. Smith, A. B., Giampietro, V., Brammer, M., Halari, R., Simmons, many contributions you have made, in a very short time, to advanc- A., and Rubia, K. (2011). Functional Development of Fronto- ing practices that are sound, effective, and humane. You have striato-parietal Networks Associated with Time Perception. promoted the role of science in a policy domain where more science Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5 doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/ is needed, but we have too rarely allowed the scientific enterprise fnhum.2011.00136. to inform policy. Our country is the beneficiary of your work, and 5. Paulsen, D. J., Carter, R. M., Platt, M. L., Huettel, S. A., and I count myself among your many fans. With respect for everyone Brannon, E. M. (2012). Neurocognitive Development of Risk committed to this cause, I am honored to accept this award.
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 27 Where Social Science Goes Wrong
By Stuart Buck
Stuart Buck is the vice president of research integrity at the Laura and Similarly, French’s paper was denied John Arnold Foundation. peer review at two other top journals. He did manage to get the British s shown in a recent incident in psychology, social science can Journal of Psychology to review it, but in go wrong when interesting results are favored over boring a cruel twist, it was still rejected because replication studies. That story offers lessons for all of the the editors asked Daryl Bem himself socialA sciences, and it gives rise to suggestions as to how criminologi- to review the replication study. French cal scholarship can be improved. and his co-authors ultimately ended up Few people believe in precognition. After all, there is no known publishing the replication in PLoS One, mechanism by which people would have the mental ability to predict an open-access journal that has a policy the future. Yet that did not stop Daryl Bem, a prominent psychologi- Stuart Buck of accepting any work that is method- cal researcher at Cornell University, from performing a set of nine ologically sound even if its findings are experiments on more than 1,000 people, with the goal of showing not considered to be “important” or “positive.” that precognition does exist. His experiments were published in a top The Bem story may seem like an entertaining fluke that applies psychology journal under the title, “Feeling the Future: Experimental only to psychology. Unfortunately, journals that publish false Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and positives but ignore replications are hardly unique to psychology. Affect.”1 That imbalance happens all the time in the rest of social science, For the sake of space, I’ll describe only one of the experiments. including criminology. The Bem case merely provides a useful Bem had 100 Cornell students sit in front of a computer displaying example that shows how journal practices can lead a scientific field a list of 48 words in sequence, for 3 seconds each. They were then to feature error over truth. given a test to see how many of the 48 words they could list by Throughout many disciplines, journal editors and scholars give memory. Then, after the test, the participants were allowed to study short shrift to replications. To be clear, hardly anyone ever says 24 of the 48 words (as randomly selected by the computer). The outright that replication is a bad idea. Everyone at least gives lip purpose was to see whether studying words after the test would service to the notion that replication is an irreducible component retroactively improve how people did on the test—thus showing that of good science, that no single result should be taken as gospel truth people had the ability to foretell the future about which words they for all times and places, and that only when a result is independently would study later. replicated multiple times should it become part of the body of Precognition proved to be statistically significant. On average, scientific knowledge. participants did slightly better on the 24 out of 48 tested words that But too many journals refuse to even consider replications, they studied after the test was over. deeming them not novel or interesting enough to be worth publish- Needless to say, these experiments were highly controversial when ing. This disdain for replications has been seen in prominent the findings were published in 2011 in the prominent Journal of criminology journals, not to mention journals covering economics, Personality and Social Psychology. Hardly any legitimate researchers political science, and other social science disciplines. In turn, given believed the results could be anything but a statistical fluke. Even the “publish or perish” mentality that is common throughout though psychology replications are few and far between, a small academia, scholars are less likely to devote time and attention to number of research teams were so disappointed by this high-profile replications. They figure, why bother with something that won’t be publication that they set out to replicate Bem’s experiments. Unsur- published anyway? prisingly, they did not turn up any evidence of precognition. The situation only worsens when you consider the fact that This is where the story takes an interesting turn. Chris French, one journals and scholars alike typically favor statistically significant of the researchers who attempted to replicate the study, found it results. A positive and significant result on a key variable is seen as nearly impossible to get a journal to consider publishing the results of exciting, as worthy of attention, and as advancing a field. For a replication experiment. Even the journal that published Bem’s example, a positive result makes it possible to write a paper in which faulty findings dismissed the idea. In French’s words, the journal the author hypothesizes that a particular program will lower recidi- editor “rejected our paper without even sending it out for peer review vism or prevent juvenile delinquency, and then the program does on the grounds that his journal ‘does not publish replications’.”2 indeed turn out to be effective. In such a case, everyone is happy—
28 www.cebcp.org affect how the program is implemented. Thus, social science findings are much more in need of robust replication by numerous indepen- dent scholars. In turn, a solution to the “researcher degrees of freedom” problem is drawing up an analysis plan ahead of conducting a study, and then preregistering it publicly so that other researchers can see what analyses were planned in advance and which were more akin to the scholar, the journal, and the readers. post-hoc data mining. Preregistration is becoming more common in By contrast, a null or nonsignificant result is often seen as disap- the work of economists and psychologists,7 and criminologists will pointing, messy, or uninteresting. If a study with such a finding is hopefully start to use these or similar registries.8 reviewed at all, journal editors or peer reviewers will go out of their Criminology journals should start considering whether their way to suggest different analyses that might somehow show the practices, like those in other social sciences, end up highlighting treatment to be effective after all.3 exaggerated findings and thus encourage scholars to produce more A final nail in the coffin is the fact that social scientists have many of them. Journal editors should start demanding preregistration of “researcher degrees of freedom” in how they analyze a dataset.4 That analysis plans and go out of their way to publish replications (rather is, they can make dozens or hundreds of discretionary choices about than turn them down). By taking such steps, editors can put how to clean and transform data, what statistical model to use, what criminology on a more solid footing and provide better information variables to control for, whether to include lagged variables or about how our criminal justice system works. higher-order polynomials, and so forth. Even when scholars make the best choices they can, the mere fact that they make such choices References after seeing the data can bias the result (as statistician Andrew Gelman shows).5 1. Bem, D. J. (2011, January 31). Feeling the Future: Experimental Given “researcher degrees of freedom” combined with publication Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and bias that disfavors null results and replications, scholarly literature Affect.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Retrieved from can come to be dominated by fluke findings. The Bem case exempli- caps.ucsf.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/bem2011. fies this phenomenon. If Bem’s original nine experiments had all pdf. shown that humans cannot predict which words they will later study, 2. French, C. (2012, March 15). Precognition Studies and the Curse prominent psychology journals would not have been interested in his of the Failed Replications. The Guardian. Retrieved from www. paper, any more than they would be interested in papers disproving theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/15 precognition-studies- astrology or witchcraft. curse-failed-replications. But a striking and counterintuitive result did get a major journal’s 3. Fox, J. (2013, October 1). Does Peer Review Ever Increase attention. When that journal refused to publish a replication study, “Researcher Degrees of Freedom” and Compromise Statistical the scholarly journal system essentially became a mechanism that Rigor? Dynamic Ecology, retrieved from dynamicecology.word- highlighted falsehood while refusing to publish its later disproof. The press.com/2013/10/01/does-peer-review-increase-researcher- same can occur throughout social sciences, including criminology. degrees-of-freedom/. The only difference about the Bem case is that it is so obviously 4. Simmons, J. P., L. D. Nelson, and U. Simonsohn. (2011, October wrong. 17). False-positive Psychology: Undisclosed Flexibility in Data Ironically, replication is a regular part of certain hard sciences. In Collection and Analysis Allows Presenting Anything as Signifi- high-energy physics, scientific teams do not hesitate to replicate each cant. Psychological Science. Retrieved from people.psych.cornell. other’s work. When one team of physics researchers in 2011 thought edu/~jec7/pcd pubs/simmonsetal11.pdf. they had seen neutrinos that moved at a speed faster than light, for 5. Gelman, A., and E. Loken. (2013, November 14). The Garden of example, the rest of the physics community tried and failed numer- Forking Paths: Why Multiple Comparisons Can Be a Problem, ous times to replicate the results.6 (In the end, the original experi- Even When There Is No “Fishing Expedition” or “P-hacking” and ment was found to have been affected by faulty equipment.) the Research Hypothesis Was Posited Ahead of Time. Unpub- If physicists routinely attempt to replicate each other’s work, social lished manuscript. Retrieved from www.stat.columbia. scientists should try to do so even more often. While the principles of edu/~gelman/research/unpublished/p_hacking.pdf. physics are the same everywhere, a policing program that worked in 6. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light_neutrino_anomaly. Chicago may not necessarily work the same way in Dallas or Toledo 7. See www.socialscienceregistry.org and http://osf.io. or Los Angeles. The demographics are different, the geographic 8. The Jerry Lee Centre of Experimental Criminology at Cambridge layout is different, the local employers and economic trends are University has developed a registry of criminology experiments. different, and the police leadership may be different in ways that See www.crim.cam.ac.uk/research/experiments.
Fall 2014 | Translational Criminology 29 Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy George Mason University 4400 University Drive, MS 6D12 Fairfax, VA 22030 www.cebcp.org